


Dealing With It

by dedicatedfollower467



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Sad, Spoilers for Episode 102, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: It’s funny, Percy thinks distantly, watching Vox Machina react to the failed resurrection. It seems each member of the party has found a different stage of grief to inhabit.





	1. Failed Resurrection

**Author's Note:**

> ....I reeeeeeally hope True Resurrection can bring Vax back, but if it didn't, this is what I think would happen.
> 
> Written very quickly this morning, un-beta'd.

It’s funny, Percy thinks distantly, watching Vox Machina react to the failed resurrection. It seems each member of the party has found a different stage of grief to inhabit.

 

Keyleth is in denial. “No,” she mutters, scrabbling at the empty armor of the Raven Queen. “It has to work. It has to! He can’t be gone… he can’t be…” She looks around the little shrine to the Raven Queen wildly, as if expecting Vax to suddenly jump out from a dark shadow.

 

Pike is furious. She doesn’t say anything but her gauntleted hands shake in fists of impotent rage as the spell fails. After a moment, she stands and walks to the wall, then let’s out a scream as she punches it, leaving a cracked dent in the stonework. Percy almost goes to stop her when he sees her slam her head down, but finds he can’t force himself to stand.

 

Tears are slowly making their way down Grog’s cheeks. Of all of them, Grog was probably the last person Percy would expect to grieve in this way, his rage so much stronger than this helpless display. But as he sits cross-legged on the floor of the temple and weeps like a child who has just lost a sibling, maybe it is not so difficult to believe.

 

Scanlan has accepted things, Percy thinks. He pats at the armor with a small, delicate hand and says “Goodbye, old friend.” Percy doesn’t know when Scanlan became comfortable with death. He doesn’t know whether Scanlan ever cared much about Vax. There’s a lot Percy still doesn’t know about Scanlan and it irritates him.

 

Vex - well. Vex has picked up the armor and a handful of dust. She’s crying too, clutching at what used to house Vax’s body. It’s not fair to her, Percy thinks. She doesn’t even have a body to cradle.

 

“Please,” she mutters, and then the words turn into an agonized scream. “Please. I’ll do anything! Take me instead! Make me your slave, take my soul, take my heart, I’ll do anything, anything you ask of me, just please, let me have him back.”

 

Vex is doing what she has always done best - bargaining. But Percy knows that it won’t be enough this time.

 

Percy doesn’t know where he stands with his grief. Vax is undeniably dead and gone. There’s no anger Percy feels, no resentment, just a subtle recognition that this is the way things are now. He won’t bargain with the gods who have already denied them, the raven bitch who already took him from them. The tears haven’t come yet, though they still might. But Percy doesn’t feel he’s accepted this yet, either.

 

He’s in shock, really. It’s like the world has slowed. Vax’ildan is dead, and there is nothing he can do or could have done to stop it. It’s just true, now.

 

They’ll have to arrange for a funeral.


	2. At the Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not everybody I'm sorry this is totally un-beta'd I wrote it this morning in a rush.

Shawn Gilmore attends the funeral in somber black robes, hair and beard tied with matte black ribbon instead of his customary bright beads and gold clasps. The tears flow freely from his eyes as he flings his arms around Keyleth’s neck.

 

Percy can overhear the muttered voice. “He was an incredible man, and we were so lucky to have known him the short time we did. I’m so sorry, Keyleth, my dear.”

 

Kima wears her silver ceremonial armor, a strip of black cloth tied as an armband to symbolize her morning. She ends up patting Pike on the shoulder a bit roughly before stepping away, clearing her throat.

 

Allura attends in an all-black gown, jewelry nonexistent or subdued. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she murmurs to Vex, tears shining like stars in her eyes. “He was far too young.”

 

Kynan wears black leather armor and his face is that of an explorer who can no longer see his guiding star through the clouds. He looks lost, twirling in his hands a dagger that looks vaguely familiar. Percy considers saying something to him, but the boy only lingers a moment before disappearing into the crowd.

 

When Korren arrives in an ash-black cloak, he puts his arms around Keyleth and holds her to his chest as she sobs into his shoulder. He doesn’t look quite like a man who has lost a child, but his expression says he feels he lost the son he never had.

 

Syldor brings his wife and daughter, all three dressed in the high formal clothing of nobility, the color the stone-gray of Elvish mourning. Percy worries for a moment that Vex will see him and fly into a rage, but he deftly avoids her, blending quietly into the crowd without even stopping to speak to her. He doesn’t know whether he appreciates Syldor respecting her space or hates him for refusing to help her.

 

Little Velora approaches instead, burying her head into Vex’s stomach and wrapping shaking arms around her waist. She has a small wooden dagger in her hand, and Vex merely strokes her hair blankly for a moment before sending her sister away.

 

Others come to pay their respects; Jarrett, his arm wrapped with a strip of black cloth much like Kima’s; Zahra and Kashaw, with black clothing and also wearing armbands; Kerrek, who stays by Keyleth’s side as a dark shadow and says nothing at all; Keeper Yennen, wearing his priestly robes and offering comfort to those who need it; Eskil Ryndarien, his crotchety scholarliness only marginally toned down due to the somber atmosphere; and many more besides, all the friends and allies they had made along their path.

 

Others come too, ones that Percy doesn’t recognize; strange men and women in black capes, that Percy suspects are clerics of the Raven Queen; dozens of people from Zephra, who have apparently grown very fond of their Headmaster's lover; citizens of Whitestone who cluster around like flies at a feast table.

 

Despite the many, many people in attendance, the funeral is small, quick, and quiet. Percy’s hands tremble when he and the rest of Vox Machina lift the casket - empty but for the Deathwalker’s Ward and a handful of dust - and lower it into the grave. He thinks again how deeply, deeply unfair it is that they have no body to lay to rest.

 

Folks pay their respects quietly and begin to trickle out one by one. Cassandra lays a hand on Percy’s shoulder and he starts. She looks him in the eye and gives him a sad, knowing nod before she leaves. Only the broken remnants of Vox Machina remain.

 

Percy looks around at his family; Grog and Pike, Scanlan and Tary, Keyleth and Vex. They, too begin to trickle away slowly - Grog, Pike and Scanlan decide it’s time to start the wake and go looking for alcohol, while Tary simply cries to exhaustion and quietly excuses himself to bed. Keyleth and Vex stand on opposite sides of the grave, staring down at freshly turned earth.

 

If Vax were here, and Percy was down in that hole, Percy knows exactly what Vax would do. He would hug his sister and kiss his lover, and talk about his feelings, and ask them how they were holding up, and comfort them.

 

Percy is not good at comfort, at emotions, at tender. Vax was the heart, he realizes belatedly, the beating core of Vox Machina’s feelings. Without him, Percy fears they are doomed to either bury them deep or drink them away.

 

So Percy grits his teeth and walks up to Keyleth; his best friend, his emotional foil, his solid rock. He puts his arm around her shoulders and hugs her as he had seen Gilmore and Korren hug her. She turns into him and sobs again.

 

“Shh,” he whispers. “I know. I know.”

 

Eventually she dries her tears, wiping feverishly at her eyes. “Where did they say they were having that wake?” Keyleth asks, her voice a clogged mix of humor and grief.

 

Percy makes a discreet request over the earpiece and then directs Keyleth to Scanlan’s guest room in Whitestone. She gives him a brief, tortured smile, and makes her way towards the castle.

 

Which leaves Vex, sitting silently by her brother’s grave and staring into the distance. Trinket lays at her back, as soundless as she. He looks up with a slight whuff of air when Percy makes his way to Vex and sits down beside her.

 

Percy puts his hand on Vex’s head and places a gentle kiss to her hair. He wants to tell her he knows what she’s going through; that he has lost family, as well, watched his brothers and sisters die and did not even have a chance to lay them to rest.

 

But he knows this is not the same; his siblings were not his twin, his family was never as close as Vex and Vax were. Percy loved them, and he will always reel from the sting of that loss, but it cannot compare to losing her other half.

 

So instead he whispers against her temple, “I love you so much,” and brushes his hand down her back and around her waist.

 

Vex leans into him and drops her head to his chest. There is nothing Percy can do but allow her to hold him close, finger the black feathers she has woven into her hair - stolen, no doubt from her brother’s armor. 

 

They breathe, holding each other in silence til darkness falls and then long after. In the wee hours of the morning, Keeper Yennen stops by the grave and quietly asks if they are all right.

 

“No,” Percy whispers, “But we will be. Please, leave us.”

 

Percy cannot keep himself awake in the still silence any longer, and as he falls asleep sitting against Trinket, wrapped in and wrapping Vex’ahlia in his arms, he wonders what tragedies the future will hold, and how many more members of his family will be stolen from him before he dies as well.


End file.
